


Ample and Minute

by apliddell



Series: An Extraordinary Genius for Minutiae [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Domestic Johnlock, F/F, F/M, Johnlock - Freeform, Johnlock Fluff, M/M, violin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 09:31:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12932445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apliddell/pseuds/apliddell
Summary: In the last few minutes of the night of their Christmas Eve wedding reception, Sherlock helps someone in need and finds a few more drops of Christmas spirit.





	Ample and Minute

**Author's Note:**

> I probably should have squeezed this into the previous installment of this series, but anyway, here it is. Hope you enjoy.

Our number has waned. Dad’s nodding off in John’s chair and occasionally interjecting with a non-sequitur to try and prove he isn’t asleep. Mum, Mary, Janine, and John are playing Cluedo,  (Professor Plum in the library with a rope)(bit grisly for an ostensible children’s pastime). Bunbury is curled in a ball and leaning against John’s shins. I have been called upon to amuse the remainder of the assembly by playing carols on my violin, but no one is really listening anymore, and am feeling envious at the missed opportunity to play Professor Plum (Mary loves the Cluedo-stabbing story, and told it to Mum with unsettling glee, though she wasn’t even present when it happened)(and anyway, John took away my knife)(though it was only a paper knife to begin with). 

 

My paper crown is slipping down round my ears and tickling my nape, and I’d rather like to be finished with the evening. Or at least, I’d like to get to the part where I crawl into bed with John and plot my dreams with my head on his chest and his arms round my waist and the thud of his heart in my ears (we’ll be sleeping upstairs in John’s old bedroom tonight, as my parents will be taking our bedroom)(though at this rate we may have to install Mary and Janine in the upstairs bedroom and sleep on the lilo in the sitting room, as it’s after eleven and no moves have been made toward departure)(something Christmas-morningish about sleeping in the sitting room, though, drifting away in front of the dwindling fire with the fairy lights still twinkling)(gosh, am I drunk?!). Lost my place in the music, bother. Go into Brahm’s Lullaby instead and finish it with a flourish, to gentle applause from John, Mum, and the girls. 

 

John comes to kiss my cheek, “Getting tired, lovely?”

 

Lean into the kiss a bit, “Mmyes, but no rush. Go and finish your game. You don’t want to leave it; Mary’s a horrible cheat.” 

 

“No, I am not!” Mary retorts instantly. 

 

John grins, “Let’s not over-excite ourselves. Wouldn’t want to make stabbing the Cluedo an annual tradition.” 

 

Downstairs the doorbell sounds once. Set down my violin, “I’ll get it. You lot enjoy your squabble.” 

 

Clatter off down the stairs and find behind the front door, not a client or a lost tourist or a hopelessly late wedding guest, but a lone caroler with a violin in a grubby red cap, festooned with holly sprigs. As soon as I’ve got the door open, she plays a chorus of We Wish You A Merry Christmas, then Auld Lang Syne. 

 

It makes me think of John. In fairness, everything makes me think of John, but those particular songs in that particular order make me remember our first Christmas together, and a wave of mingled gratitude and retroactive longing washes over me so that I have to blink hard and bite my lip. If John were next to me, he’d pinch me (he isn’t, but I’ll see him in less than a minute).

 

Applaud when she finishes, and she gives me a little grin and bows. Her nose and ears and cheeks are red with cold, as are her fingertips where they poke out from the snipped off ends of her thin gloves. My own appendages tingle in sympathy (or perhaps with the icy draught that’s blown in with the music). 

 

Step back from the door and hold it open, “Sorry, I didn’t know you were caroling when I came down, and I’ve left my wallet in my jacket upstairs. Want to step in for a moment and get warm while I pop up and get my cash?”

 

“Thanks,” the caroler’s grin grows a little and she steps in and shuts the door behind her, tucking her violin and bow under either armpit to rub her arms. 

 

“No problem, won’t be a moment,” turn toward the stairs and hesitate. “We’re having a party, actually. Or we were, but now it’s just my husband and my friends playing board games with my mum. Anyway, you might come up for a bit, if you like. There’s food and drink and all that. Sorry, what was your name?”

 

“Er,” she looks a little uneasy now, edges back toward the door, as if to be assured I can’t get between her and it (take a couple steps back). “People call me Wiggy.” 

 

Well she hasn’t refused my invitation, but she certainly hasn’t accepted it either (good for her, actually; could be a murder party for all she knows). Point taken, “Right, well. Nice to meet you, Wiggy. I’m Sherlock. I’ll just. I’ll go and get my wallet. Be right back.” 

 

Dart back up the stairs and make right for the kitchen, where I ladle some of the leftover soup into a dish and pop it in the microwave, then go looking for my wallet. All I’ve got is twenty quid, but I bring it up to a hundred with the contents of John’s as well. Find a new block of rosin in my desk, return to the kitchen to pour the soup into a travel mug, and make for the front door with the lot of it. On a whim, grab my gloves from my coat as well. 

 

“Where are you going with all that, lovely?” John calls after me.

 

Halt on the threshold, “This? Er, there’s a girl downstairs, a caroler and she’s got a violin, and I think she’s sleeping rough, so.”

 

“Part of the Baker Street Irregulars?”

 

“No, I don’t know her. But you know. It’s cold outside. Anyway, she’s just standing there waiting, and the longer I keep her waiting, the more she’s going to think I’m a murderer gathering up murder tools, so,” I leave instead of finishing my sentence. 

 

Downstairs, Wiggy is leaning against the front door with her violin and bow stowed in a case she’s propped against her ankles, and she straightens up when she sees me descending, rather bemused at my armful of things. “I’ve brought you some soup,” I announce, holding out the mug. “And er. Rosin, because your bow’s a little slick. And these gloves, since they’re erm. Not my colour. Oh, and the cash, like I said.” 

 

Wiggy raises an eyebrow, but accepts the things as I push them toward her one by one. She pockets the rosin, the gloves, and the money, but twists off the lid of the mug, and takes a sip of the soup, then nods approvingly, “It’s nice. What is it?”

 

Smile proudly, “Mainly butternut and sweet potato. I made it myself, actually.” 

 

“You’re a good cook,” Wiggy takes a big gulp of soup, then grimaces when she burns her tongue. 

 

“You don’t have to finish it all right there. You can take the mug. People will keep giving them to us as gifts, not sure why.” 

 

“Thanks,” Wiggy bobs a little nod of thanks and takes a more moderate sip. 

 

“So erm. Do you do a lot of this sort of thing? Or odd jobs?”

 

She nods, “I used to drive a cab, but not so much anymore. Now it’s kinda. Whatever’s handy, yknow?”

  
  


Nod, “Of course. I’m a detective,” feel in my pocket and offer her my card. “And sometimes I need odd jobs doing. People followed. Secret agent shit like that. I’m always looking for people who know London and can get around without attracting attention. Here’re my details. Maybe if you need a bit of work, you’ll text me some time or email me. It’s all on the card.”

 

Wiggy takes the card and looks down at it, “Secret agent shit, eh? Sherlock Holmes. That’s quite secret agent.”

 

Grin, “That really is my name, though.”

 

“I’m Bill, Bill Wiggins,” Bill Wiggins pockets my card and offers her hand to shake. 

 

Shake hands, “Nice to meet you, Bill.”

 

“Cheers, likewise. Well, I should be off. Thanks for the soup and all.” Her eyes flick up to a point above my shoulder, “That your husband up there?”

 

Look over my shoulder to find John standing on the landing, watching with a rather soppy smile on, “Yes, it is, actually.” To John, “Sneak.” 

 

John grins and waves, “Hi. I’m John.” 

 

“Good night, John,” Bill calls. She steps back and opens the front door, “Merry Christmas.” She picks up her violin case and takes another swig of soup, then steps out into the night. 

 

“Merry Christmas,” I call after her, and she glances back at me and nods, setting her holly sprigs bobbing. 

 

John has come to the bottom of the stairs when I shut the door and turn back to the staircase, “Secret agent shit, I knew it.”

 

“Shut up, John.”

 

“Never.” I kiss him, and he smiles around the kiss. “I think you may have just met an elf, lovely. You’ll be getting something nice in your stocking, in that case.” 

 

“It’s cold, John!” 

 

“I know, I know.” John gives me a little pinch, “You’re such a sweetheart. I’m telling everyone.” 

 

“John!”

 

He laughs, “Come on, 007. Let’s go up and say good night.” 

 

“Right,” I say when I step into our sitting room behind John a moment later, “One last song, and then everyone left is getting tucked in, like it or not.” Take my place at the window, catch up my violin, and without waiting for a reply begin Auld Lang Syne. 

 

The quiet chatter in the room fades as the music fills it. I’ve frozen this moment by playing into it, I think. The song makes it a discrete and lovely link on a beautiful chain, and I understand suddenly why my mother wished the evening into being to begin with. Pleasant as the surrounding haze of cheer has been, under the song, we are united, for just this tiny aeon, in exactly the same happiness. Soon I’ll put down my instrument, and we’ll all hug and kiss and tramp off to our beds. But for just a little longer, we are perfectly together. 


End file.
